A living sacrifice
Romans 12:1 (NIV) “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”
Under the Law of Moses, an individual who wanted to demonstrate an act of complete dedication to God brought an unblemished animal to the Temple. The animal was then slaughtered. Afterward, the priest completed his duties by burning the carcass upon the altar. This was known as a burnt sacrifice, an aroma pleasing to the Lord.
Leviticus 1:9 (NIV) “You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord.”
Paul’s primary challenge to us is to become living sacrifices to God.
This sacrifice has four distinctive qualities:
It Is Living – It is not a one-time offering, never to be repeated. Rather, it is to be on-going since it continually lives.
Romans 6:13 (AMP) “Do not go on offering members of your body to sin as instruments of wickedness. But offer yourselves to God [in a decisive act] as those alive [raised] from the dead [to a new life], and your members [all of your abilities—sanctified, set apart] as instruments of righteousness [yielded] to God.”
Ephesians 2:1 (AMP) “And you [He made alive when you] were [spiritually] dead and separated from Him because of your transgressions and sins.
Jago Wynne writes, “Our act of worship is no longer to bring a sacrifice, but to be one ourselves. We remain living. It is all of us that is being offered. Worship is about what I say with my tongue. It’s about what I watch… what I think… where I go with my feet.”
We need to offer a sacrifice of our lips Hebrews 13:15-16 (NIV) “Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased.
We need to sacrifice of our life – Romans 12:1-2 (MSG) “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
We must sacrifice of our love – Hebrews 13:16 (NIV) “And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased”